Virginia Party Politics

The Walton Act helped to keep political
control in the hands of the Democratic party, by discouraging many
Republican and African American voters from visiting the polls. Democrats
also tried to
alienate Republicans from white voters by stigmatizing them as the "party
of the Negro." On November 9, 1898, The Daily Progress commented on
the effects of
Virginia's one-party system on the 1898 election results, in "A Quiet Day Everywhere and a Small
Vote." The election was marked by voter apathy.

In an attempt to regain voter support, the Republican party urged
local voters to form campaigning clubs in their ward or precinct.

Charlottesville's African Americans also participated in this
Republican organizational drive.

During this period,
J.H. Rives, M.L. Price, and other Republican leaders wrote
letters expressing "lily white" sentiments and frustrations towards the
Democratic party which relentlessly continued to play the race card
against the Republican party.

The Conference of Colored Men later developed into the Virginia
Educational and Industrial Association, sometimes referred to as
the Negro Educational and Industrial Association. The organization met the
following year in Staunton and next in Richmond, in 1902.

A flyer surviving from 1901 suggests that, besides annual meetings,
smaller local meetings were also being held.

Perhaps there were local branches of the association with individual
agendas.

By the 1902 annual meeting, the purpose of the Virginia (or Negro)
Educational and Industrial Association was to raise funds to test the
legality of the new Constitution.
African-American lawyer James H. Hayes from Richmond and white attorney
John S. Wise from New York led the court battles. On November 14, 1902,
Jones et al. v. Montague et al., seeking a writ of prohibition,
and Selden et al. v. Montague et al., seeking a writ of injunction
were filed in the United States Circuit Court at Richmond. The
prosecution raised charges that Governor Montague, members of the
registration boards of election, and 50 members of the Constitutional Convention had deprived African
Americans of the right to vote and that registrars were descriminating
against African-American registrants. Chief Justice of the State Supreme
Court Melville W. Fuller heard the cases in Circuit Court and dismissed
both suits on lack of jurisdiction. Wise and Hayes submitted an appeal to
the United States Supreme Court, but the previous decision was upheld in
1904.

Charlottesville African Americans remain persistent, however. In May
1907, The Daily Progress noted in "SWELLED CITY'S VOTING LIST" how the
number of
African-American registrants more than doubled in the past year.

Despite obstacles and
setbacks, many African Americans continued to
fight against disfranchisement and maintain their right to vote.